FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Zenon Dance Companys

32nd Fall Season

November 21-30, 2014

The Cowles Center

World premieres by:

Cuban choreographer and Northrop McKnight International Artist

Osnel Delgado

(his first work on a U.S. company)

and

New York choreographer Vanessa Anspaugh

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTAThe maverick Zenon Dance Company, a modern- and jazz-dance institution that continues to influence and enhance the Minnesota dance scene, announces its 32^st Fall Season, November 21-30 at The Cowles Center in Minneapolis. The program showcases Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgados first dance piece on a U.S. company, and a new work by New York choreographer Vanessa Anspaugh.

Zenon Dance Companys 32^nd Fall Season

What: Zenon Dance Companys 32^nd Fall Season

When: Fridays and Saturdays, November 21-22, 28-298 p.m.

Sunday, November 302 p.m.

Where: The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts

Tickets: $34 (fees included)

Osnel Delgado: Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado is a McKnight International Artist. The McKnight International Artist Fellowship, administered by Northrop, invites one international choreographer each year to spend time in residence in Minnesota, collaborating with Minnesota dance artists and showcasing new work. International Artist Fellowships are offered by invitation only. This year the McKnight Fellowship Program selected Zenon Dance Company to work with Delgado, who will create his first U.S. work on the company.

We are thrilled to work with international Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado and to partner with the McKnight Fellowship Program, says Linda Z. Andrews, Zenons founder and artistic director. I have a long-standing interest in Cuban dance, music and culture, and am eager to bring Osnel's passionate, colorful work to the Twin Cities.

Mary Ellen Childs, who directs the McKnight Fellowship Programs at Northrop, adds that, Cuba has an incredibly rich dance tradition, and Osnel is on the verge of exploding onto the international dance scene. We typically have limited access to artists living in Cuba and to have Osnel here for an extended residency is a rare opportunity for the Twin Cities dance community.

Osnel Delgado has received major Cuban awards including the Premio a Mejor Coreografia del Concurso Solamente Solos (Award for Best Solo Choreography), and a Special Mention award at the VII Iberomerican Alicia Alonso Choreography competition in Madrid. He was a member of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba from 2003 to 2011 and founded MalPaso Dance Company in 2013, where he currently serves as choreographer and artistic director.

See Delgado dance on PBSs Thirteen. To watch MalPaso Dance Company, view this video from the Joyce Theater in New York.

Vanessa Anspaugh: The Brooklyn Rail wrote that the Brooklyn-based choreographer Vanessa Anspaugh has a talent for compelling rapt attention from relatively quiet moments and an almost classical sense of space, arranging performers artfully on the stage.

Originally from Los Angeles, Anspaugh is a choreographer, teacher and performer, and has also worked as a visual artist and aerial dancer. A performer with such downtown choreographers as Faye Driscoll (Zenon premiered Driscolls Mariana last year), Anspaugh has been lauded for her physicality and intriguing use of stage space.

Faye [Driscoll] recommended I look at Vanessas work and I was intrigued by how she plays with movement and space in revelatory ways, says Andrews. Were excited to see how Vanessa plans to manipulate and maximize the wings, floor and flyspace of the Cowles Center theater, while staging the Zenon dancers singular physicality and adaptability within new spatial contexts.

Zenons History

Linda Z. Andrews, founding artistic director, studied at the Martha Graham School, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Julliard School, and with Alvin Nikolais, Lynn Simonson and Merce Cunningham before moving to Minneapolis. She formed Ozone Dance School in 1979, which today is the Zenon Dance School, a nationally recognized training center for vocational and professional dancers. In 1983, she formed the professional Zenon Dance Company from her two dance groups: Rezone Dancers (modern) and Just Jazz Dancers (jazz). Since its first performance in 1983, Zenon Dance Company has become one of the nations premier contemporary dance repertory companies.

Through the years, Zenon has performed a unique function in the region and throughout the United States: Andrews has created an extensive modern, jazz and post-modern dance repertory by commissioning new works from more than 60 of the worlds most intriguing emerging choreographers.

The repertory includes works by such now-iconic choreographers as Bill T. Jones, David Dorfman, Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, Joe Goode, Tere OConnor, Sean Curran, Wil Swanson, and Bill Young, as well as rising stars Andrea Miller and Kyle Abraham. International choreographers whove worked with Zenon include Susanna Tambutti and Johannes Wieland.

From post-modern choreographers, Zenon has repertory works by Tere OConnor, Morgan Thorson, luciana achugar, Netta Yerushalmy, Jeanine Durning and Faye Driscoll. Zenon is also the repository of jazz choreographer Danny Buraczeskis works, which the company performs with regularity. In 1989, Buraczeski moved his New York company JAZZDANCE to Minneapolis to merge with Zenon, a fruitful relationship for many years. Andrews has also supported local choreographers throughout three decades, commissioning works from Wynn Fricke, Cathy Young, Robin Stiehm, Linda Shapiro, Uri Sands, Joe Chvala and Myron Johnson.

For more information on Zenons 32^nd Fall Season, contact Camille LeFevre at 651-646-2098; camillelefevre@comcast.net.